Wings, Wing Tip (Part 6)

After installing all the nutplates on the Wing Tip Fairing.....it now needs a rib!  The W-1016-L Wing Tip Rib was inserted into the Wing Tip Fairing.  The plans state to “position the wing tip rib to fit snugly into the wing tip without distorting the wing tip or rib web”.  With the Rib installed in this manner, the forward and aft ends of the Rib was marked on the Fairing.  Here you can see those marks.....far left and right of the picture.  Next, measure 5/16” from each of those marks (toward the center of the Rib) and 5/16” from the inboard edge.  Those two “points” become the starting points for all the measurements.

Now, here is where the plans lost us.  Van’s provided measurements for a rivet pattern to attach the Wing Tip Rib.  For some reason, we weren’t able to make those measurements work and keep the holes on (over) the Wing Tip Rib flanges.  I’m sure they are probably right and if someone showed us....we would say “OH”.  But, we couldn’t make it work. So, there are four flanges on each Rib (two on the top and two on the bottom).  Instead of only marking the “points” on the outer edges of the flanges, we made a 5/16 “point” on EACH end of EACH flange.  To get our rivet pattern:

1.  We measured the distance between the 5/16” marks on each flange

2.  Consulted the plans to see how many rivets they wanted on each flange

3.  Divided the distances by the number of rivets.

Here is what we came up with:

  Top two flanges:

Short flange rivet spacing is 35.6 for four rivets

Long flange rivet spacing is 36.07 for six rivets

Bottom two flanges:

Short flange rivet spacing is 47.45 for three rivets

Long flange rivet spacing is 38.61 for six rivets

This picture shows the bottom of the Wing Tip Fairing with the marks based on our measurements.....

.....and this is the top of the Wing Tip Fairing with the marks based on our measurements.

After verify all the marks were appropriate and accurate, we match-drilled the holes in the Fairing and Rib.  This is the top of the Fairing with the 10 holes match-drilled.....

.....and the bottom of the Fairing with the nine holes match-drilled.

After all the holes were match-drilled, we removed the Rib.  Looks like our measurements worked out great.  Here are the 10 holes drilled on the top flange.....

.....and the nine holes on the bottom flange.